Can the Warriors win without Stephen Curry?

1of9Golden State Warriors center Stephen Curry limps off the court after sustaining a knee injury during the third quarter on Friday, March 23, 2018 in Oakland.Photo: D. Ross Cameron / Special to The Chronicle

2of9Stephen Curry carefully steps off the platform after a press conference before the Golden State Warriors played the Utah Jazz at Oracle Arena in Oakland on Sunday, March 25, 2018.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

3of9Golden State Warriors center Stephen Curry bides his time on the bench during the second quarter of an NBA basketball game against the Atlanta Hawks on Friday, March 23, 2018 in Oakland.Photo: D. Ross Cameron / Special to The Chronicle

4of9Warriors' Steph Curry during workouts at their practice facility in downtown Oakland, Calif., on Thurs. March 22, 2018.Photo: Michael Macor / The Chronicle

5of9Warriors' Steph Curry during workouts at their practice facility in downtown Oakland, Calif., on Thurs. March 22, 2018.Photo: Michael Macor / The Chronicle

6of9Stephen Curry (30) talks about his injury during a press conference before the Golden State Warriors played the Utah Jazz at Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif., on Sunday, March 25, 2018.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

7of9Golden State Warriors' Stephen Curry signs an autograph before Warriors' game against Los Angeles Lakers at Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, March 14, 2018.Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle

8of9Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) exits and follows the team to the locker room following an NBA game between the Warriors and New Orleans Pelicans at Oracle Arena on Saturday, April 7, 2018, in Oakland, Calif. The Warriors lost 126-120. Curry continues to recover and is on the injury list.Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle

9of9Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30), out with a sprained left MCL, will be re-evaluated on April 21.Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle

There’s a missing element with these Warriors. His name is Stephen Curry.

The two-time MVP went down with a sprained knee March 23, and the team hasn’t been the same since then. Granted, the Warriors struggled all season to maintain focus and effort. But once their starting point guard was shelved, the team stumbled.

Golden State lost 10 of its last 17 games. The last game, a 119-79 drubbing by Utah, was downright ugly. One would think that this team could compete without Curry, considering the other three All-Stars on the roster.

But Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green haven’t been able to fill the vacuum. Can they fire up the forge for their first-round matchup against San Antonio? We’ll find out starting Saturday.

A number of things will have to come to pass:

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1. Durant has to step forward and take full leadership. He can do it, and now’s the time the Warriors’ investment in a backup MVP needs to pay off.

2. Thompson needs to get hot, and stay hot. He might be the league’s purest shooter, alongside Curry, and now’s the time to show it.

3. Green needs to keep his cool. San Antonio head coach Gregg Popovich knows that tweaking Green’s temper is a path to victory. Green needs to keep his head in the game, and out of the head games.

4. Quinn Cook needs to keep playing “Curry-lite.” The G League call-up played well enough down the stretch to earn a contract and a playoff roster spot. But defensive intensity increases dramatically in the postseason, which Cook is about to experience.

5. Steve Kerr needs to settle on a more established rotation. The Warriors’ head coach has mixed and matched all season, seeking to rest his older players and test his younger players. Now he needs to settle on a rotation that gives the team some consistency.

If all that comes to pass, the Warriors should have little problem getting past a San Antonio team a bit long in the tooth, and a lot short on Kawhi Leonard. Remember, the Spurs were destroying the Warriors in the first game of last year’s conference finals before Leonard went down with an injury. The Spurs could not recover and were swept. Leonard has suffered from a lingering quadriceps injury this season, with no clear timetable to return.

If the Warriors get past the Spurs as expected, the door opens for Curry’s return for the second round. Or does it? Team officials have said Curry would be evaluated April 21, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be ready to play. A knee sprain is serious business, and Curry also dealt with a balky ankle for a good portion of the season.

Curry was on the Warriors’ practice court Thursday, dribbling and shooting and joking with teammates. I asked Green about Curry’s progress and the message was simple: “We’ve been here before. We’ve got to come out and execute and play our game.”

Kerr echoed the sentiment, saying he learned to roll with turmoil from playing for Popovich.

“It’s what I took from my San Antonio days,” Kerr said. “Stuff happens. We went in one year without Tim Duncan. ... You just don’t know what’s coming. So you just prepare, and you do your best and you fight and you stay together.”

Kerr said No. 30 remains engaged while rehabbing. Curry “has been great,” Kerr said. “His voice has been great for his teammates, more so sharing things behind the scenes.”

But what happens when he returns to the court will be all that matters. One can’t help but think back to the 2016 playoffs, when Curry went down with both ankle and knee ailments, and did not return to top form. He showed a lot of mettle, competing to the very end of the Finals against LeBron James and the Cavs.

But I’ll never forget a key segment in the deciding Game 7, when Curry was unable to shake the lead-footed Kevin Love on the perimeter to get off a clean three-point try. A healthy Curry would have left Love in the dust. Instead, an injured Curry and his teammates fell just short of a championship.

Al Saracevic has worked for the San Francisco Chronicle since 2000, when he came over to the paper during the merger with the San Francisco Examiner. He started at the Hearst-owned Examiner in 1994. During his time at both papers, Al has held numerous jobs ranging from copy editor to wire editor to reporter to columnist to deputy section editor. He also served as Business Editor of The Chronicle before becoming sports editor in 2009.

Among the major stories Al has covered: the dot-com boom and bust of the 1990s; the California energy crisis of the early 2000s; the Web 2.0 revolution; the rebuilding of Iraq after the initial occupation of that country; the accounting, banking and real estate crises of the middle-2000s; two U.S. Open golf tournaments; the President’s Cup; the Fiesta Bowl; the Rose Bowl; two World Series; numerous NFL playoff games; and one Super Bowl. Currently, Al remains the sports editor of The Chronicle. He also pens a weekly column called From the Sports Desk. And in his spare time, he is the founding contributor to the paper’s online snow sports blog, Slope Dope.